Perfect Day

leather sofa, ‘but I’ll have more money.’
    ‘And you’ll be with Des,’ Kate says. ‘Is it a nice house?’
    She pictures them in a little modern place with Marie up a ladder, singing along with Jennifer Lopez on Capital as she slops lime green paint on the ceiling, or lilac or some other bright colour she’s seen on Changing Rooms.
    ‘Listen to you!’ Marie suddenly snaps. ‘Why should I settle down? You’re not.’
    ‘I don’t want you to settle down,’ Kate protests.
    ‘Yes you do.’
    ‘Only because I’m frightened for you sometimes,’ Kate says carefully.
    ‘Why don’t we go round the world together, then? I’ve got enough money for both of us...’
    Kate has never suspected that Marie wanted to share her dream with her. She wonders why it hasn’t occurred to her. It’s typical of Marie. Now she understands the generosity of her sister’s invitation to London .
    Go for it, Kate. Stay at my place.
    ‘You’d do more things with me along,’ Marie presses on, capitalizing on Kate’s surprise. ‘What’s to lose? If I give this place up, you’ll have to go back home anyway. You’ll never survive and save, working in a pizza restaurant.’ She blows out a smoke ring contemptuously.
    With typical impatience, she’s moved from suggestion to blackmail in less than a minute.
    ‘I can’t go with you,’ Kate tells her. ‘It’d be great with you, but different,’ she says, trying to soften the refusal.
    ‘You won’t change, you know,’ Marie taunts her, ‘you’ll still be who you are even if you’re in Timbuk -bloody-too.’
    ‘I don’t want to change,’ Kate says carefully, ‘I just want to see something different.’
    ‘Well, I’m moving in with Des, then,’ says Marie, defeatedly .
    ‘Up to you.’
    ‘ D’you want a coffee?’ Marie’s as quick to forgive as to threaten.
    ‘No thanks, it’ll keep me awake,’ says Kate, feeling suddenly enormously affectionate towards her sister.
    She takes her skirt off and climbs into the bed. Marie’s scrupulously clean about changing the sheets each time she brings a client back, but the bed still smells of sex and her current perfume.
    Marie fidgets about the flat rearranging things and smoking. Kate sits up and folds herself over the side of the bed to reach her suitcase. She yanks it out, opens the catches and pulls out her notebook. The cover is navy blue leatherette and there is a strap with a lock. Kate has the tiny key in her purse along with a St Christopher medal she was given as a First Communion present.
    Marie watches Kate as she starts to write.
    ‘Still got that book?’
    ‘Yes.’
    Marie gave it to her on her eighteenth birthday. Kate suspected she’d nicked it from W.H. Smith.
    ‘I bought that for you.’
    ‘It’s the best present I ever had.’
    ‘Really?’ Marie’s face lights up. ‘Let’s have a look.’
    Kate happily hands it over, knowing that Marie hasn’t the patience to decipher her tiny writing.
    ‘I met this bloke, but I didn’t bonk him,’ Marie pretends to read.
    ‘Give it back!’ Kate laughs.
    Marie tosses it at her.
    With a stranger, you can be who you want to be... Kate writes.
    Marie draws back the covers and lies down next to her.
    ‘ D’you mind if I have the light out?’
    ‘Go ahead.’
    Kate closes her notebook, locks it and swings down to put it back in her suitcase.
    There’s a light-pull above the bed. The room is dark apart from the pink, green and orange fluorescent stars and the tip of Marie’s cigarette.
    Kate wishes she’d had a chance to write everything she wanted. Sleep will make her more distant from him. In the morning she may have forgotten what it felt like when he kissed her.
    ‘Do you ever make bargains with God?’ she asks Marie quietly in the darkness.
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘You know, promises in return for favours ‘Oh, you mean, like, I promise I’ll give up smoking if I’m not pregnant... that sort of thing?’
    ‘Yeah... well, sort of...’
    ‘All the time,’ says Marie. ‘Why?’
    ‘Doesn’t matter.’
    There’s a moment’s silence then Marie says in a singsong voice, ‘Dear God, if I can have this stoopy film star bloke, I promise to go to Mass every day for the rest of my life...’
    ‘Be quiet,’ Kate scolds, but she’s giggling.
    Please God, give me one day with him, and I’ll go back home.
    The thought flies through Kate’s head before she can stop it. She doesn’t think it counts unless you say it out